A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That . .: Day 3 of the Bike Barge Trip - Dordrecht to Antwerp - Monday

We had a easy day today. The barge left Dordrecht at 8 am and our breakfast was at 8:30 am which meant that we didn't have to bike right away. We stayed on the barge all morning, had lunch around noon and then about 1 pm we arrived to a little town called Tholen. From there we got on our bikes and started pedaling. Tom, our guide took us on a short tour of Tholen, it is so small that there was not much to see.

Leaving Dordrecht

Going through one of the locks

Modern windmills

Older windmill

Tholen

Tom showing us how horses were shoed in Tholen

Tholen

Tholne

We rode on to the Oyster Dam, which is a dam they built to keep the flooding waters away. On one side of the dam is salt water and on the other side is fresh water. We stopped on a beach which seemed to be a very popular vacation spot for people. It was also covered with oyster shells and mussel shells. The whole dam must have been almost 10 miles long.

Oyster Dam

Oysters

Oyster Dam

From there we arrived before our boat at Kreekrak locks. We were able to watch our barge come through the locks. It was closer to 4 pm by the time we boarded the barge again. Soon after that we crossed the border to Belgium. There was only one smallish marker on the shore and it didn't even say that we were on the border.

Our barge emerging from the Kreekrak locks

The Magnifique

Netherlands - Belgium border marker

The rest of the day we stayed on the barge as we were entered Antwerp. Antwerp harbor is one of the biggest in the world and there were so many barges and tankers and storage places and oil tanks and everything you can imagine. It was not very pretty area. We did have one close call as were sitting on the deck and watching all those ships go by. One barge decided that it was in a rush and started passing us. It came really close and I don’t think Nick, our deck hand who is learning to become a captain, has run as fast too often as he did then trying to get a fender between us and the other barge. That was a pretty close call.

Antwerp harbor

Close call with another barge

Whew missed it

But we arrived to Antwerp in one piece. We had another nice dinner on board thanks to our chef, Ramon and his helper Berber. Tonight we had a salad with Feta cheese, some kind of curried fish, rice and vegetables, and the dessert was sort of a key lime pie but not quite, it was very good.

After the dinner Tom took us on a tour of Antwerp. Not only do we get to bicycle during the day we also get at least an hour plus long walking tour of the town we dock in. We passed this really neat looking museum called Mas. Then went towards an old castle that used to be a museum and is now some kind of childrens place. There was a long boardwalk kind of thing also and Tom was telling us how some shady looking looking people come there and pointed at two sleeping on one of the benches. They turned out to be Ramon, our chef, and Karl, our captain, and they had some wine for all of us. From there we went on and heard the story of Lange Wapper and then went to an area that had all kinds of restaurants. We also saw an old alley that had been restored to look like the streets did look like during the 1500-1600’s. We went by the church and the town hall with a statue with a story behind it, before heading back to the barge. That tour of Antwerp lasted almost 2 hours. Karl, our captain was on the deck so we talked with him for awhile. Now it’s time for bed since tomorrow is another long day. If you want to know more about these tales that Tom tells us, Jeff’s been posting them on his blog, you can read about them there or search the web.